V-belts for motor vehicles are well known and usually replacements for failed belts are available at motor vehicle fuel-service stations, garages, etc. However, like other usually reliable elements of a motor vehicle failure can occur without warning and at inconvenient times and places. Service facilities may be closed or a long distance away. Even when near a service station or other source the latter may be just out of the belt size needed. Without a proper belt to reestablish reliable motive power the vehicle is useless unless an emergency repair can be made. The frequency of such occurrences has led to many attempts to provide satisfactory emergency repair means. These usually embody concepts such as using free-ended, unconnected, belt material and fastening means or other interlocking means which will make it possible to connect the free ends to form belts of a range of sizes (lengths) from a single strip of belt material. Many forms of fastening means for joining the belt ends have been devised, including interlocking teeth, special attachments and pins and rivets. Many such attempts to meet the need for a satisfactory emergency belt are disclosed by the prior art. For example, U. S. Pat. No. 3,744,095, granted July 10, 1973, discloses the use of internesting tongue and groove-like projections at the two ends of the belt strip and pins inserted transversely through the internesting members.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,748,699 granted July 31, 1973, on the other hand, discloses the use of interengaging transversely extending slots in the belt ends and a tongue member having projecting "blades" which are received in the transversely extending slots, thus connecting the two slotted ends.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,254,666 discloses the use of a uniquely formed belt having interfitting ends, one of which can be directed through a channel in the other end and upwardly from the channel outwardly through one of a series of openings in the channel. The mating sections of the belt ends are tapered and provided with teeth such that the ends interlock with each other as one end is pulled into the outwardly through one of the openings.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,849 granted Mar. 20, 1984 discloses the use of another specially formed molded belt, and a separate bar-like ratchet member receivable in a grooved channel at one end of the belt and also receivable within a likely grooved channel at the other end of the belt. The grooved channel extends from one end of the belt to the other end. The belt ends are drawn together by advancing the separate ratchet member into one or both of the belt ends.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,445,877 granted May 1, 1984 teaches the use of a special fixture, termed a receiver, which is attached to a first end of an open belt by riveting and crimping. The receiver has a channel through which the second end of the open belt, the other end, is extended. A pivotally mounted belt gripping knife-like blade is mounted in the fixture such that the blade can be swung into and out of a position transverse of the channel. In use the second end of the belt is extended through the channel and grasped to tighten the belt, thereafer upon a slight relaxation of the force on the belt the knife-like blade impinges upon the second belt end, thus locking the second belt end within the receiver.
The above patents illustrate rather complex specially designed elements and/or attachments that have been devised for "emergency" belts and/or to provide a variable length belt for general use as a substitution for the ordinary closed loop V-belts. According to the prior art neither cost nor complexity seem to be of consequence in their design. Possible problems resulting from projections extending from a belt or from discontinuity in a belt cross-section also seem to have been ignored.